Montek defends poverty line

While briefing Vahanvati about the background of Commission’s affidavit,Ahluwalia has cautioned him to ward off attempts by the petitioners in the case to get the court to raise the poverty line benchmark on other parameters de-linked from Tendulkar Committee.

“It is possible that some petitioners could request that poverty line be fixed at the minimum wage. This is not possible because wage is ‘income’,whereas official poverty line is defined in terms of ‘consumption’ which is generally lower. Moreover,wage income is for a family and cannot be linked to per capita norms without adjustment for family size,” Ahluwalia has told Vahanvati in his letter.

In the backdrop of Ahluwalia and Rural Development Minister’s joint press conference that the government has delinked the poverty line from the selection of poor beneficiaries coming to be seen as removal of the practice of imposing state-wise ceiling of the number of poor beneficiaries,the Attorney General has been told that Central government’s liability towards supplying highly subsidised foodgrains to poor will be “capped” even though the new poverty ratios will be anchored in the proposed food security law.

In this backdrop,he has also pointed out that while the poor beneficiaries will be identified from the ongoing socio-economic and caste census,their selection will be calibrated to fit the poverty cap fixed in the food security law.